Fifty

Every round you secretly write five numbers between 1 and 49. Then one player starts counting aloud from 1. When a number you wrote is called, your hand goes up. If no other hand goes up with it, you take over the count and score a point for every number you call, until someone else claims a number alone and takes it from you. Two hands at once cancel out and the leader carries on. The count stops at 50; after four rounds, the most points wins. It is a pencil-and-paper party game with no cards to shuffle and nothing to teach beyond that paragraph. Pick numbers everyone will avoid, or pick the obvious ones and hope for a collision. It is at its best with five to seven, plays in fifteen minutes, and makes a good opener or a final round after a longer game.